EDUCATOR RESOURCE GUIDE

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

& Other Eric Carle Favorites

The Very Hungry Caterpillar MAY 3 - JUNE 3, 2012

& Other Eric Carle Favorites
Produced by Mermaid Theatre of Nova Scotia Adapted
Directed and Designed by Jim Morrow Music by Steven Naylor
Narrated by Gordon Pinsent
AGES 2-8 Grades PreK+
SEASON
SPONSORS
 presents

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

& Other Eric Carle Favorites

Table of Contents

Synopsis................................................................................................................. 3
Curriculum Connections and EALRs......................................................... 4
Eric Carle - The Very Wonderful Artist..................................................... 5
Words, Actions & Ideas................................................................................... 6-7
Puppetry in The Very Hungry Caterpillar................................................ 8
Activity Pages...................................................................................................... 9-11
Booklist.................................................................................................................. 12
Evaluation Form................................................................................................ 13

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SYNOPSIS
Mermaid Theatre draws upon puppetry and black light to capture the charm of three favorite
Eric Carle stories:

Little Cloud
While all the other clouds drift slowly across the
sky, Little Cloud trails behind. He touches the tops
of houses and trees. He changes shape to become a
sheep, an airplane, a shark, and even a clown wear-
ing a funny hat. When the other clouds drift back
and call to Little Cloud, he happily joins them to
become one big cloud. And then they rain!

The Mixed-Up Chameleon

A small green chameleon lives his
life just like all chameleons do. He
changes colors depending on where
he is and how he feels. When he’s
hungry, he catches flies with his long
sticky tongue. It’s not a very exciting
life, but it’s all he knows - until he
sees a zoo and all the wonderful
animals there. What would it be like
to be as big as a polar bear, as handsome as a flamingo, to swim like a fish? He transforms him-
self bit by bit until he is completely mixed-up and looks like all the animals at once. But is he
happy? No. It turns out that being a small green chameleon suits him best after all.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

An egg sits on a leaf in the light of the Moon. When the Sun comes up,
a tiny hungry caterpillar comes out of the egg, looking for food. On
Monday he eats one apple. Tuesday, two pears. Wednesday, Thursday,
Friday – three plums, four strawberries, five oranges. On Saturday he
unwisely eats everything from chocolate cake to salami. Eating one
green leaf on Sunday makes his stomach feel much better. Now he’s
not so tiny or hungry anymore. He builds a cocoon and lives inside
it for more than two weeks. When he makes his way out he’s not a
caterpillar at all. He is a beautiful butterfly.

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CURRICULUM CONNECTIONS & EALRS
The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Other Eric Carle Favorites touches on many themes and ideas.
Here are a few we believe would make good Curriculum Connections: Growth/Development, Days
of the Week, Metamorphosis, Counting, Puppetry, Colors, Clouds, Adaptation, Creative Play.
We believe that seeing the show and using our Educator Resource Guide can help you meet the
following EALRs:
State Standards:
1. The student understands and applies arts knowledge and skills.
Theatre 1.1 Understand arts concepts and vocabulary, specifically, identifies and
describes characters, setting, actions, conflict, sounds
1.2 Develops theatre skills and techniques.
1.4 Understands and applies audience conventions in a variety of settings
and performances of theatre.
3. Theatre: The student communicates through the arts (dance, music,
theatre, and visual arts).
3.1 Uses theatre to express feelings and present ideas.
1. The student understands and uses different skills and strategies to read.
Reading 1.1 Use word recognition skills and strategies to read and comprehend text.
1.2 Use vocabulary (word meaning) strategies to comprehend text.
1.3 Build vocabulary through wide reading.
1.4 Apply word recognition skills and strategies to read fluently.
2. The student understands the meaning of what is read.
2.1 Demonstrate evidence of reading comprehension.
2.3 Expand comprehension by analyzing, interpreting, and synthesizing
information and ideas in literary and informational text.
2.4 Think critically and analyze author’s use of language, style, purpose, and
perspective in literary and informational text.
3. The student reads different materials for a variety of purposes.
3.1 Read to learn new information.
3.2 Read to perform a task.
3.4 Read for literary experience in a variety of genres.
EALR 2: Inquiry. Big Idea: Inquiry (INQ). Core Content: Making Observations
Science Students learn that scientific investigations involve trying to answer questions by
making observations or trying things out, rather than just asking an adult. Chil-
dren are naturally curious about nearly everything—butterflies and clouds, and
why the Moon seems to follow them at night. The essence of this standard is to
channel students’ natural curiosity about the world, so that they become better
questioners, observers, and thinkers, laying the groundwork for increasing
understanding and abilities in science inquiry in the years to come.
1. The student uses listening and observation skills and strategies to gain
Communication understanding.
1.1 Uses listening and observation skills and strategies to focus attention and
interpret information.
1.2 Understands, analyzes, synthesizes, or evaluates information from a variety
of sources.
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ERIC CARLE - THE VERY WONDERFUL ARTIST
Eric Carle is acclaimed and beloved as the creator of
brilliantly illustrated and innovatively designed picture books
for very young children. His best-known work, The Very
Hungry Caterpillar, has eaten its way into the hearts of
literally millions of children all over the world and has been
translated into more than 50 languages and sold over 33
million copies.
Born in Syracuse, New York, in 1929, Eric Carle moved with
his parents to Germany when he was six years old; he was
educated there, and graduated from the prestigious art
school, the Akademie der bildenden Künste, in Stuttgart. But
his dream was always to return to America, the land of his happiest childhood memories. So, in
1952, with a fine portfolio in hand and forty dollars in his pocket, he arrived in New York. Soon
he found a job as a graphic designer in the promotion department of The New York Times. Later,
he was the art director of an advertising agency for many years.
One day, respected educator and author, Bill Martin Jr., called to ask Carle to illustrate a story
he had written. Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? was the result of their collaboration.
This was the beginning of Eric Carle’s true career. Soon Carle was writing his own stories, too.
His first wholly original book was 1,2,3 to the Zoo, followed soon afterward by the celebrated
classic, The Very Hungry Caterpillar.
Eric Carle’s art is distinctive and instantly recognizable. His artwork is created in collage
technique, using hand-painted papers, which he cuts and layers to form bright and cheerful
images. Many of his books have an added dimension - die-cut pages, twinkling lights as in
The Very Lonely Firefly, even the lifelike sound of a cricket’s song as in The Very Quiet
Cricket - giving them a playful quality: a toy that can be read, a book that can be touched.
The themes of his stories are usually drawn from his extensive knowledge and love of
nature - an interest shared by most small children. Besides being beautiful and entertaining, his
books always offer the child the opportunity to learn something about the world around them.
Carle says: “With many of my books I attempt to bridge the gap between the home and school.
To me home represents, or should represent warmth, security, toys, holding hands, being held.
School is a strange and new place for a child. Will it be a happy place? There are new people, a
teacher, classmates - will they be friendly? The unknown often brings fear with it. In my books I
try to counteract this fear, to replace it with a positive message. I believe that children are
naturally creative and eager to learn. I want to show them that learning is really both fascinating
and fun.”

Excerpted from The Official Eric Carle Web Site:

http://www.eric-carle.com/home.html

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WORDS, ACTIONS & IDEAS

HOW THE PLAY IS PERFORMED

black light: invisible ultraviolet light. A black-light bulb seems to give off only a faint purple light, but it
can make things that are white or fluorescent glow in the dark.
puppetry: the art of creating special objects (puppets) and then bringing those objects to life on stage
narrator: a person who tells a story by writing or speaking

LITTLE CLOUD
cloud: a visible body of very fine water droplets or ice particles
suspended high in the air
drift: to be carried along by currents of air or water
trail: to follow behind
ocean: a vast body of salt water that is home to sharks, whales, fish,
and other underwater creatures
dash: to run quickly
meadow: an open area of land covered by nature in grasses and
flowering plants
huddle: to pack together in a group
water cycle: the natural sequence in which water warms up to be-
come wtater vapor, condenses into clouds, falls back to earth as rain,
sleet, or snow, and then warms to
become water vapor again, and so on

Actions in the story:

drifted slowly moved drifted back
trailed behind changed huddled close together
pushed upward and away flying through drifted toward
pushed downward stayed in one place
touched dash across

Continued on the next page...

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 THE MIXED-UP CHAMELEON
chameleon: a lizard that can change color. Most can change from brown
to green and then back from green to brown, but some chameleons can
change to almost any color.
camouflage: special coloring and patterns that allow an animal or per-
son to blend into their surroundings

Colors the chameleon becomes:

green brown - brownish red - reddish yellow - yellowish grey

What the chameleon wishes he could be:

big and white like a polar bear strong like an elephant
handsome like a flamingo funny like a seal
smart like a fox

What the chameleon wishes he could do:

swim like a fish see things far away like a giraffe
run like a deer hide in a shell like a turtle

A VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR
egg: the very first stage of life for many young animals, during
which the animal is protected by a shell. Birds, fish, reptiles,
amphibians, and insects hatch from eggs.
caterpillar: the worm-like phase that makes up a butterfly’s
feeding and growth stage
cocoon: a case or covering of silky strands spun by an insect that
serves as a protective covering
butterfly: a type of insect that usually has a slender body, knobbed
antennae, and four broad wings that are often colorful
metamorphosis: a dramatic change in form and physical appearance

What the caterpillar eats:

apple ice cream cone sausage
pears pickle cupcake
plums slice of Swiss cheese slice of watermelon
strawberries slice of salami green leaf
oranges lollipop
piece of chocolate cake piece of cherry pie

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PUPPETRY IN THE VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR
The Very Hungry Caterpillar & Other Eric Carle Favorites is told entirely through the use of
black-light puppetry and narration. In all three stories presented in this production, a main
character goes through a series of physical transformations. Puppetry allows the play to
illustrate those changes in a fascinating way.
Black-light puppetry uses a stage lit with ultraviolet, or black, lights. The puppeteers and some of
the architecture of the stage are covered in black velvet, which cannot be seen under the lights.
This allows the puppeteers to be completely hidden, while the puppets can be any size and have
a large range of motion. The puppets themselves are fluorescent colored, so they are fully visible
and able to move or float in what sometimes seems to be midair - or even disappear.

The way in which the puppets are manipulated is born out of

the ancient tradition of Bunraku puppetry, originally developed
in Japan. This style of puppetry has multiple puppeteers
operating one puppet by moving different rods attached to its
feet, hands and head. Bunraku puppeteers dress in black
clothing to attempt to blend into the background as much as
possible. Bunraku plays feature traditional Japanese music and
tell popular stories that the audience often knows beforehand.
This is similar to The Very Hungry Caterpillar, which is told
with music and narration from the books themselves.

Bunraku puppeteers

This style of presentation allows the puppeteers to mirror Eric Carle’s

collage illustrations while making the stories come alive with move-
ment and texture. The audience sees the stories performed in a way
that stays true to the spirit of Eric Carle’s books.

Operating The Very

Hungry Caterpillar puppet

ACTIVITY:
Puppetry is a form of theater that can easily be recreated at home or in the classroom to
explore stories, feelings, problems and transformations.
Have the students write a short story and create a paper bag puppet of one of the characters
in their story. Attach material like pipe cleaners, string, paper fasteners and rubber bands that
can flow, jiggle, and bounce so the students can explore what happens when the puppet moves
in different ways.

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BOOKLIST
For Children & Young Adults:
The Grouchy Ladybug The Very Busy Spider
Eric Carle Eric Carle
Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?
Bill Martin Jr.
Caps for Sale A Color of His Own
Esphyr Slobodkina Leo Lionni
26 Letters and 99 Cents Planting a Rainbow
Tana Hoban Lois Ehlert
In the Small, Small Pond Black? White! Day? Night! - A Book of Opposites
Denise Fleming Laura Vaccaro Seeger
Freight Train
Donald Crews
This masterpiece by acclaimed designer and picture book author/illustrator Donald Crews
has it all: colors, trains and an action-packed story!

For Adults Working with Children & Young Adults:

Mr. Gumpy’s Outing I Went Walking
John Burningham Sue Williams
Child of Wonder: Nurturing Creative & Naturally Curious Children
Ginger Carlson
Unplugged Play: No Batteries. No Plugs. Pure Fun.
Bobbi Conner
Chock full of activities (over 700) for all ages of children who are about the business of
childhood: play!

Booklist prepared by Steve DelVecchio,

King County Library System

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HOW DID WE DO?
We’d love to know what was helpful to you as you read and used this guide. Please fill out and
return this short survey to us. We appreciate your feedback.
1. For which play/plays did you use the Educator Resource Guide?
Harold and the Purple Crayon Robin Hood
A Year with Frog and Toad A Single Shard
HELP The Very Hungry Caterpillar
2. Was it easy for you to find and download the Educator Resource Guide?

Very Somewhat Not very Not at all

3. On a scale of 1 – 5 (5 being the highest), how useful was the Educator Resource Guide?

1 2 3 4 5
4. What did you use from the Educator Resource Guide?

5. Is there something you would like to see included in the Educator Resource Guide that
wasn’t here?

6. Which of the following best describes you? I teach:

Preschool Middle school Homeschool
Elementary School High school
Other Comments:

THANK YOU!

MAIL: or FAX: or EMAIL:

Seattle Children’s Theatre 206.443.0442 schoolshows@sct.org
Attention: School Shows
201 Thomas Street
Seattle, WA 98109

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